Unpopular opinions

[Pikachu315111]

Hopefully in the DLC we get something more involving Gym Leaders/E4/maybe even Team Star Leaders

I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't. While SwSh had you able to rematch the Gym Leaders in the base game already, they did later on add in the Galarian Star Tournament which was fun. I know GF is adverse to using good ideas again, though I hope maybe them leaving out E4 Rematches (and Gym Leaders rematches) would mean they're planning something like it to go along with the DLCs.

Yes, I said, "go along with the DLCs". Not PART of the DLC, along with. For free to everyone. GF, you for some reason want more time or wait to have the League rematches, fine I guess, I guess it gives another reason for players to come back to the games. But don't you DARE put basic rematches as part of the paid DLC. You want to have something like a Paldean Star Tournament part of the DLC? Fine, go right ahead, that's technically an additional feature which would hopefully also come along with some unique stuff such as additional rewards and interactions between characters. But there should be no reason why a player can't go to the Gym (Building) or the Pokemon League and ask to challenge the Gym Leader/Elite Four again but this time at higher levels.

Oddly the Team Flare bosses you can fight again (once a day, but don't think you'd want to do more than that). You can't rematch their Starmobiles though. And of course the Titans are one-and-done.

If it were up to me, alongside Teal Mask I'd have an free DLC which lets you re-challenge the bosses of each of the three Treasure Hunt storylines: League (Gym Leaders, Elite Four, Geeta, & Nemona), Team Star (the Starmobile battles & Penny), and the Titans (also able to battle Arven too). Nothing too special, just able to re-experience those battles but at higher Levels.

Then, for the Indigo Disk, since it's about you visiting another Academy, I can see them using that to do a Paldean Star League thing. Teal Mask had the basic rematches alongside it, now it's time to do some more ambitious things. Maybe add in more Titans (actually they could probably do this in the Teal Mask too, there was only 5 Types covered by the Titans leaving 13 available), and give Penny a Starmobile.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I haven’t actually gone back and even rematched the E4 (idk if you can aha) but I actually liked the return to an ordered Elite Four in SV, like back in Gen 1-4. Could just be me though.

I like both approaches, but the ordered E4 feels more natural to me in part because they generally imply the order is due to them being ranked in strength. Like, Lance is very clearly the most powerful of the Kanto E4 whereas three years later it's suggested that Will is a very recent addition to their roster, and Bruno has moved up in rank (evidently seniority doesn't default to the longest-serving member, as Karen takes the top spot). In Hoenn, Sidney's youth and relative inexperience are emphasised, and Lucian outright states that he's the most powerful of the Sinnoh group. Rika calling Hassell the "last line of defence" would seem to confirm he's the designated strongest too. The Unova, Kalos, and Alola groups seem to be more "we're all equals here" which makes more sense on the face of it; they're all master trainers and apparently not in direct competition - but with top-level professionals in fields like sports and intellectual pursuits there's usually a constant ranking to say that so-and-so is the #1 athlete/chess player. You'd expect that they'd seek to establish their own internal ranking rather than leaving it as "well we're all just as good as one another".

 

[Coronis]

I like both approaches, but the ordered E4 feels more natural to me in part because they generally imply the order is due to them being ranked in strength. Like, Lance is very clearly the most powerful of the Kanto E4 whereas three years later it's suggested that Will is a very recent addition to their roster, and Bruno has moved up in rank (evidently seniority doesn't default to the longest-serving member, as Karen takes the top spot). In Hoenn, Sidney's youth and relative inexperience are emphasised, and Lucian outright states that he's the most powerful of the Sinnoh group. Rika calling Hassell the "last line of defence" would seem to confirm he's the designated strongest too. The Unova, Kalos, and Alola groups seem to be more "we're all equals here" which makes more sense on the face of it; they're all master trainers and apparently not in direct competition - but with top-level professionals in fields like sports and intellectual pursuits there's usually a constant ranking to say that so-and-so is the #1 athlete/chess player. You'd expect that they'd seek to establish their own internal ranking rather than leaving it as "well we're all just as good as one another".

It definitely makes sense thematically in Alola at least with the League just being formed as to why they’d not have a ranking, less so in the other regions.

 

[Hugin]

An ordered E4 is also good for players who are doing level-limited challenge runs. I generally play with the rule that I try not to outlevel the next boss' ace. In Paldea, I can walk into the E4 matching Rika's 58, and while my team will level up a bit as I go through, I won't outlevel Hassel's 61 unless something weird is going on. Alola, where everything is lvl 54-55, I will definitely overlevel unless I go in at like 53.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I like both approaches, but the ordered E4 feels more natural to me in part because they generally imply the order is due to them being ranked in strength.

It definitely makes sense thematically in Alola at least with the League just being formed as to why they’d not have a ranking, less so in the other regions.

Honestly, aside from the last E4 member, I think generally the positions of first, second, and third are interchangeable. Like, before writing this post I tried going through each one to reason why the Ordered ones are the way they are... but than I realized I could just as easily come up with an explanation if the order of first to third were different. It makes me more wonder if an Ordered E4 is moreso to emphasized the strength of the last member or possibly a representation of the Region.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Also, Kleavor as an in-between Scyther and Scizor would IMO have worked the best.

Been thinking about this since I saw it the other day. I don't think we've ever had a new evolution that worked like this but imo it'd be really cool to see, conceptually and mechanically. The middle stage could just be skipped entirely, with Scyther who become Kleavor having access to moves (and even perhaps abilities?) that Scizor who evolve directly from Scyther do not. It already works like this with babies, there's scope to do something similar with a middle evolution.

 

[pika pal]

I like both approaches, but the ordered E4 feels more natural to me in part because they generally imply the order is due to them being ranked in strength. Like, Lance is very clearly the most powerful of the Kanto E4 whereas three years later it's suggested that Will is a very recent addition to their roster, and Bruno has moved up in rank (evidently seniority doesn't default to the longest-serving member, as Karen takes the top spot). In Hoenn, Sidney's youth and relative inexperience are emphasised, and Lucian outright states that he's the most powerful of the Sinnoh group. Rika calling Hassell the "last line of defence" would seem to confirm he's the designated strongest too. The Unova, Kalos, and Alola groups seem to be more "we're all equals here" which makes more sense on the face of it; they're all master trainers and apparently not in direct competition - but with top-level professionals in fields like sports and intellectual pursuits there's usually a constant ranking to say that so-and-so is the #1 athlete/chess player. You'd expect that they'd seek to establish their own internal ranking rather than leaving it as "well we're all just as good as one another".

On the athlete comparison, I guess it's tricky if the Pokemon aren't in wholly comparable categories. Like every Soccer/Football player is playing the same game (even if different positions they're usually compared against other people playing what they do) and people are often experts in a particular field or category of knowledge.

With Pokemon, how do you verify when a trainer is your better outside of gamey stuff like levels or explicit lore (Lance with Dragons which are supposed to be very hard to train in Gen 1 depiction)? With Unova, how would one define Grimsley as better than Shauntal or Caitlyn as opposed to similar/equals where one happens to specialize in a better match-up? It can work in reverse for older E4's like Koga and Bruno being better than the Psychic Specialist Will (the anime does this a bit with the "all equal" Kalos setup of Drasna intimidating Wikstrom despite her Dragons being disadvantaged against Steel), but I feel like they haven't really wanted to suggest a "power scale" to the Elite Four after Gen 1 where a big part of it was Lance faking you out as the fake final boss before Blue's reveal.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

On the athlete comparison, I guess it's tricky if the Pokemon aren't in wholly comparable categories. Like every Soccer/Football player is playing the same game (even if different positions they're usually compared against other people playing what they do) and people are often experts in a particular field or category of knowledge.

With Pokemon, how do you verify when a trainer is your better outside of gamey stuff like levels or explicit lore (Lance with Dragons which are supposed to be very hard to train in Gen 1 depiction)? With Unova, how would one define Grimsley as better than Shauntal or Caitlyn as opposed to similar/equals where one happens to specialize in a better match-up? It can work in reverse for older E4's like Koga and Bruno being better than the Psychic Specialist Will (the anime does this a bit with the "all equal" Kalos setup of Drasna intimidating Wikstrom despite her Dragons being disadvantaged against Steel), but I feel like they haven't really wanted to suggest a "power scale" to the Elite Four after Gen 1 where a big part of it was Lance faking you out as the fake final boss before Blue's reveal.

I always figured it was purely down to training. The Elite Four presumably constantly train against each other as well as the Champion (in the Gen IV anime we see this several times); Lorelei presumably hasn't ever beaten Bruno (or at the very least loses to him much more often than she wins).
In FRLG there's a Black Belt in Indigo Plateau who complains that he can't beat Agatha, suggesting that he's capable of beating Lorelei and Bruno. It obviously makes sense for a Fighting trainer to be able to defeat Lorelei with relative ease, and perhaps he and Bruno are more or less easily matched. But this points to Agatha being a level above the others.

Though I would think at a high enough level type specialisms hardly matter at all in most cases; Caitlin is probably quite equally matched against Grimsley and Shauntal and isn't at an immediate disadvantage because of her chosen type. So Lorelei being weaker than Bruno and Agatha is probably more about her experience/skill than anything else - it's a case of "you're not bad, I'm just better". Or to put it another way, she's a 9.5, he's a 9.6.

 

[pika pal]

I always figured it was purely down to training. The Elite Four presumably constantly train against each other as well as the Champion (in the Gen IV anime we see this several times); Lorelei presumably hasn't ever beaten Bruno (or at the very least loses to him much more often than she wins).
In FRLG there's a Black Belt in Indigo Plateau who complains that he can't beat Agatha, suggesting that he's capable of beating Lorelei and Bruno. It obviously makes sense for a Fighting trainer to be able to defeat Lorelei with relative ease, and perhaps he and Bruno are more or less easily matched. But this points to Agatha being a level above the others.

Though I would think at a high enough level type specialisms hardly matter at all in most cases; Caitlin is probably quite equally matched against Grimsley and Shauntal and isn't at an immediate disadvantage because of her chosen type. So Lorelei being weaker than Bruno and Agatha is probably more about her experience/skill than anything else - it's a case of "you're not bad, I'm just better". Or to put it another way, she's a 9.5, he's a 9.6.

While I understand your point that type match-ups don't dictate the match in its entirety, I think it still fair to say they're not directly comparable unless we're comparing them against all the opponents they face rather than each other, because the inherent disadvantage of Psychic vs Ghost means that Caitlin's Pokemon could be stronger in a vacuum, but if she's facing Grimsley she'd need to be stronger/more skilled than he would be to win that match-up.

The Black belt example from FRLG pops at me because Black Belts typically specialize in Fighting Types, which would match up well to Loreli's Ice and go sort of even with Bruno, while Agatha's team is Ghosts/Poison that they're disadvantaged against. If anything it strikes me as a reminder you can't overspecialize to run the Gauntlet like you might have against the Gym Leaders (who were still individual opponents).

 

[Hugin]

Don't forget that fairly often, Pokemon does major battles in reverse matchup order. Paldea E4 is a perfect example, Ground>Steel>Flying>Dragon. In fact, looking through the list, only Kanto!Indigo and Sinnoh don't have the members types in reverse order of who wins. There's some stretches, but it's clearly something they try to do.

My assumption has always been that Bruno's good enough to beat Koga even if Koga resists all his attacks(Onix SWEEP), while losing to Karen no matter how much damage he does to her Umbreon. Skill beating out type matchups.

 

[Ashton98]

I think the Hoenn region had too much water in it. I found it annoying to constantly keeping having to use surf when travelling in the games. And it could be easy to get lost when using surf, and you had to spend a lot of pokecoins on repel, since travelling by water meant lots of random encounters.

 

[Madam Monette]

I think we have too much water type aquatic creatures. Half of them don't even use water as elemental attacks. I'd go as far as to say some of the fish Pokemon would make sense as either part normal type, or even pure normal type.

 

[Pikachu315111]

Been thinking about this since I saw it the other day. I don't think we've ever had a new evolution that worked like this but imo it'd be really cool to see, conceptually and mechanically. The middle stage could just be skipped entirely, with Scyther who become Kleavor having access to moves (and even perhaps abilities?) that Scizor who evolve directly from Scyther do not. It already works like this with babies, there's scope to do something similar with a middle evolution.

Actually what I think Eriorguez meant was, stat-wise, Kleavor should have been inbetween Scyther & Scizor:

Scyther:
70/110/80/55/80/105//500
Kleavor's Actual Stats:
70/135/95/45/70/85//500
"Inbetweener" Kleavor:
70/120/90/55/80/85//500
Scizor:
70/130/100/55/80/65//500

But as for the concept you mentioned, it would have to be done with a Pokemon whose stats have a radical change either in numbers or distribution (also maybe a Type difference). However another issue also comes with the questions of why not just improve the previous evolution or just make this new "mid" stage a completely new evo with stats to match. Like I was trying to think of an example, was going to use Onix & Steelix, but before I got too far I thought "anything I'm thinking of is either a better Onix (thus they should just make Onix's stats better), a lesser Steelix (which means there's no point), or could just be an alternate Onix evo". I'm sure there's probably some Pokemon, but honestly I would just prefer either new evolutions or Baby Evos of Pokemon that could have a reasonable prevo made for it.

Don't forget that fairly often, Pokemon does major battles in reverse matchup order. Paldea E4 is a perfect example, Ground>Steel>Flying>Dragon. In fact, looking through the list, only Kanto!Indigo and Sinnoh don't have the members types in reverse order of who wins. There's some stretches, but it's clearly something they try to do.

My assumption has always been that Bruno's good enough to beat Koga even if Koga resists all his attacks(Onix SWEEP), while losing to Karen no matter how much damage he does to her Umbreon. Skill beating out type matchups.

Quoting Hugin since they're the last one to mention anything about this topic, though I'm just adding my thoughts to the overall discussion than specifically responding to their post.

For the E4 who have a specific order, considering the rooms are customized to their Type (though wouldn't be surprised if they had a way to shuffle the rooms placement), I think they occasionally have matches against each other to decide order. I still argue they are equal in power and, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter in what order a League Challenger faces them in as they have to battle all E4 anyway. So the order is more for bragging rights between each other than their position on the League totem pole. Of course, as I mentioned in my last post on this subject, the "4th member" usually comes out on top whenever they do this, with Lance even going on to become a Champion.

I think the Hoenn region had too much water in it. I found it annoying to constantly keeping having to use surf when travelling in the games. And it could be easy to get lost when using surf, and you had to spend a lot of pokecoins on repel, since travelling by water meant lots of random encounters.

I think the problem with Hoenn's water route isn't that there's a lot of them, but rather they're all the same. The ocean has many different kind of biomes, both above and under water, they could have made the routes different from one another which would help break up the monotony of surfing on yet another water route. From one of my old posts on this very thread:

In addition the ocean is more than just open water. There are plenty of water biomes, especially when near land, which could have added some interesting visuals when exploring all the water routes. They could have had a coral reef, kelp forest, hydrothermal vents, brine pool, marine snow, algae bloom, ocean current, a sunken ship, a whale fall, a garbage patch, etc.. You then dot the area with trainers who, in addition to a battle, give you some information about the biome/phenomenon. And of course would help diversify what Pokemon you'd find.

I think we have too much water type aquatic creatures. Half of them don't even use water as elemental attacks. I'd go as far as to say some of the fish Pokemon would make sense as either part normal type, or even pure normal type.

They've actually gotten better with that over the years. Just look through the Water Egg Groups (One (Terrestrial), Two (Fish), & Three (Invertebrates)).

 

[Rapti]

I hate what they did to contests in BDSP and in fact wish for a whole spin off where to only way to progress is to win ribbons in the old fashion contest style

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I hate what they did to contests in BDSP and in fact wish for a whole spin off where to only way to progress is to win ribbons in the old fashion contest style

As someone who adores Contests and really enjoyed them in Gen 3/4 and ORAS (ORAS Contest Spectaculars are great!), I have to agree.

In general two of the best side features of DPP, including Contests themselves, just felt so watered down in BDSP which was immensely disappointing for me. The other thing that I'm talking about is Secret Bases, which were such a cool feature in Gen 3/4 and ORAS as well, but BDSP just changed Secret Bases to being statue holders to put up statues to manipulate spawns in the Hideaways. Old style Secret Bases actually felt like a cool hideout you had somewhere in the region and you could be really creative with what you put in them and it was awesome. BDSP? Boring as heck.

Seeing both of them watered down to a mere shell of what they were in BDSP was very saddening for me since those were among my favorite things in DPP and if there was one thing that absolutely disappointed me with BDSP (aside from the lack of Platinum features) it was Contests and Bases being much shallower renditions of themselves without any of what made them charming to begin with.

I would absolutely be down for a spin off focused on Contests though. I miss Contests very much and would love a whole game where I can do them as a main thing.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Actually what I think Eriorguez meant was, stat-wise, Kleavor should have been inbetween Scyther & Scizor:

Scyther:
70/110/80/55/80/105//500
Kleavor's Actual Stats:
70/135/95/45/70/85//500
"Inbetweener" Kleavor:
70/120/90/55/80/85//500
Scizor:
70/130/100/55/80/65//500

But as for the concept you mentioned, it would have to be done with a Pokemon whose stats have a radical change either in numbers or distribution (also maybe a Type difference).

Why exactly? If anything Scyther & Scizor's stat equivalence makes them perfect for a change of this nature, because the effect of skipping or becoming Kleavor would be more apparent than otherwise. An Onix that becomes a Steelix is always better, period - it's a straightforward upgrade. A Scizor that knows different moves because it had become a Kleavor is a more subtle, less straightforward upgrade.

& I know what the original poster was going for, but surely for a new Pokemon to become the 2nd stage of an already-existing line you'd have to make it optional by design? Because there'd be Scizor from earlier generations that would have skipped the Kleavor stage anyway.

 

[Worldie]

Let's be honest, the main reason they kept Kleavor as its own separate thing is cause giving Scizor Stone Axe would have been a very stupid idea

 

[Pikachu315111]

Why exactly? If anything Scyther & Scizor's stat equivalence makes them perfect for a change of this nature, because the effect of skipping or becoming Kleavor would be more apparent than otherwise. An Onix that becomes a Steelix is always better, period - it's a straightforward upgrade. A Scizor that knows different moves because it had become a Kleavor is a more subtle, less straightforward upgrade.

& I know what the original poster was going for, but surely for a new Pokemon to become the 2nd stage of an already-existing line you'd have to make it optional by design? Because there'd be Scizor from earlier generations that would have skipped the Kleavor stage anyway.

What Moves does Kleavor learn that they just can't have Scizor learn? While I know Scizor can't learn Smack Down or Rock Slide, at the same time there's no reason they couldn't add the TM for Rock Slide to its TM list (I'm actually surprised it doesn't have it). Also, if Kleavor was an inserted mid evo, they couldn't give it Stone Axe as that Move wouldn't make sense for Scizor to have.

And yes, the new Mid Stage would have to be optional. But that just means there would have to be a point in doing it which they couldn't accomplished by either making the base stage stronger if they felt it was too weak or making it an alternate evolution if they wanted to go a different direction.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

What Moves does Kleavor learn that they just can't have Scizor learn? While I know Scizor can't learn Smack Down or Rock Slide, at the same time there's no reason they couldn't add the TM for Rock Slide to its TM list (I'm actually surprised it doesn't have it). Also, if Kleavor was an inserted mid evo, they couldn't give it Stone Axe as that Move wouldn't make sense for Scizor to have.

In this alternate reality I'm postulating we can presume that Stone Axe would be slightly different. Or... it wouldn't be and it'd just be a Rock coverage move that Kleavor-adjacent Scizor would simply have access to.

And yes, the new Mid Stage would have to be optional. But that just means there would have to be a point in doing it which they couldn't accomplished by either making the base stage stronger if they felt it was too weak or making it an alternate evolution if they wanted to go a different direction.

I also mentioned abilities as a potential difference too. The way ability slots works now doesn't quite mesh with this, but a flag could potentially be added that allows Scizor that evolve from Kleavor to retain Sharpness instead of changing to Light Metal (and/or potentially Sheer Force too).

Idk. I don't feel particularly motivated to defend this concept to the bitter end, I just think it's a possibility that could work well. It's not a million miles away from the sort of thing they've already done.

 

[Worldie]

Idk. I don't feel particularly motivated to defend this concept to the bitter end, I just think it's a possibility that could work well. It's not a million miles away from the sort of thing they've already done.

While interesting in theory, I feel that "adding mid-evolutions" would just end up being both unintuitive and a competitive logistical nightmare on practical standpoint.

Basically risking to go back to scenarios like Breelom losing access to Spore permanently upon evolving, or the extremely convoluted breeding chains that needed to be done in some gens to access certain egg moves.

Fancy and flavourful, sure, but I think we're well past the age where "complex, convoluted and obscure" was a good thing for non-niche videogames.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

While interesting in theory, I feel that "adding mid-evolutions" would just end up being both unintuitive and a competitive logistical nightmare on practical standpoint.

Basically risking to go back to scenarios like Breelom losing access to Spore permanently upon evolving, or the extremely convoluted breeding chains that needed to be done in some gens to access certain egg moves.

Fancy and flavourful, sure, but I think we're well past the age where "complex, convoluted and obscure" was a good thing for non-niche videogames.

Reasonable take, though I don't think that Pokemon will ever leave behind "complex, convoluted and obscure" as a design choice completely (Galarian Yamask says hi). Am I right in thinking Hisuians can't evolve in ScVi?

Unintuitive - well, it depends how well they explain it in-game (so probably not very well, then). Logistical nightmare... eh, I wouldn't really call it that but maybe.

 

[Worldie]

Am I right in thinking Hisuians can't evolve in ScVi?

As of now the only ones that cannot evolve are either the ones with regional evolutions (es, Goomy into H-Sliggoo) or require "use move in style X" (es, H-Qwilfish). The others can evolve regularly.
I wouldn't be surprised if the DLCs add a way for the former to evolve though, since the trailers seemed to imply the possibility of these "regional areas" in the second DLC which hosted species from other regions.

I don't think that Pokemon will ever leave behind "complex, convoluted and obscure" as a design choice completely (Galarian Yamask says hi)

I think we'll still keep seeing the odd obscure-y thing, but even the few we had left are slowly being rendered easier to access, or are just generational one-of that become much easier the next gen or with the coming of DLCs.

 

[Castersvarog]

I think the problem with Hoenn's water route isn't that there's a lot of them, but rather they're all the same. The ocean has many different kind of biomes, both above and under water, they could have made the routes different from one another which would help break up the monotony of surfing on yet another water route. From one of my old posts on this very thread:

Plus with Hoenn specifically a lot of the encounters when surfing will just be tentacool and the Wingull line, Mons you’ve absolutely encountered multiple times by this point already. If there were more surfing Mons to encounter like the Horsea, Remoraid, Mantine or Wailmer lines it would have helped alleviate the repetition I feel

 

[Madam Monette]

They've actually gotten better with that over the years. Just look through the Water Egg Groups (One (Terrestrial), Two (Fish), & Three (Invertebrates)).

I know and I'm glad they're diversifying. I'm hoping it gets to a point where the aquatic Pokemon selection in a newer game becomes so diverse, that little to none of them would be water type.

 

[Pikachu315111]

I know and I'm glad they're diversifying. I'm hoping it gets to a point where the aquatic Pokemon selection in a newer game becomes so diverse, that little to none of them would be water type.

While I doubt we'll ever have no aquatic Water-types (it makes sense that a Pokemon which lives in the water would develop Water-type skills if not be a Water-type itself), I would hope now that we've gotten over 1k Pokemon and next gen would be the big 10, GF would be more experimental with their idea of what creature would have what Type. Hisuian Qwilfish went from Water/Poison to Dark/Poison, so it seems like they are beginning to span out.